Frankford
Dallas, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The site of the former town of Frankford consists of the three-acre wagon yard, five-acre Frankford church area and three-acre cemetery. The town of Frankford grew around Indian Springs after W.C. McKamy and his family moved to Texas in 1852. They sold firewood and water to settlers moving along Preston Road. Some of these settlers stayed at Frankford, creating the growing town near Indian Springs. The Frankford Post Office stood at the intersection of the Dallas North Tollway and Hilton Head Drive. At its height Frankford had a steam grist mill, corn mill, cotton gin, blacksmith shop, two general stores and three churches, with 83 residents. In 1858, the White Rock Masonic Lodge was organized at Walnut Grove, and in 1872 moved to a building in Collin County, located on what is now the northwest side of Frankford cemetery. The hall became the fraternal, religious and educational center for miles around. A church building was also erected on the cemetery grounds in 1880, only to be destroyed by a tornado. Some of the wood in the current Frankford church came from the original church. The end of Frankford came with the growth of the railroad. The line bypassed Frankford and instead went through Addison, eventually prompting the move of the Lodge Hall to Addison in 1907. The town of Frankford no longer existed, though the larger landowning families like the Cooks and McKamy’s remained. In 1948, the Frankford cemetery association was incorporated to help maintain the cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Frankford grew up around Indian Springs after the McKamy family arrived in 1852 and began selling firewood and water to settlers moving along Preston Road. At its height the little town had a grist mill, cotton gin, stores, three churches, and a Masonic lodge that served as its social heart. When the railroad ran through Addison instead, Frankford withered — the lodge moved away in 1907 and only the church and cemetery remain.
Why it matters
Frankford is a classic ghost town, a reminder that in nineteenth-century America the railroad's route could make one town and quietly erase another.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · W. C. McKamy
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Allen
Allen, TX
Fertile prairie and reliable water had drawn settlers here since the 1840s, but Allen truly began in 1876 when the Houston and Texas Central Railroad built a water stop on Cottonwood Creek and platted a town, naming it for railroad founder Ebenezer Allen. In 1878 an outlaw gang said to be led by Sam Bass robbed the depot in what is often called Texas's first successful train robbery. Interurban electric rail arrived in 1908, and late-century growth in the Dallas metroplex swelled the town past 19,000.
Sachse
Sachse, TX
Before the railroad arrived, this stretch of Dallas County prairie was ranch and farm land worked by a handful of settlers. In 1886 landowner William Sachse deeded a right-of-way to the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad, which in return platted a townsite and named the depot for him. The village stayed tiny for decades—drawing water from shallow wells and relying on the county for roads and law—until residents incorporated in 1956 largely to qualify for district water, running early city government out of a small cinder-block pump station on this spot.
Community of Little Elm
Little Elm, TX
Little Elm sits on land from the Peters Colony, an empresario grant the Republic of Texas awarded in 1841 to lure settlers to its northern frontier. Among the first were John and Delilah King, who came from North Carolina in 1844; their son "Kit" King helped organize the area's first mail service and became postmaster when the Little Elm post office opened in 1852. Formed from a cluster of small settlements, the town might have faded—but the creation of Lake Dallas in the 1920s and Lake Lewisville in the 1950s, plus nearby Dallas–Fort Worth, drove it to grow and incorporate in 1966.
Nash Farm
Grapevine, TX
Established in 1859 by Kentucky migrants Thomas Jefferson Nash and his wife Elizabeth, this 450-acre farm is one of the last surviving nineteenth-century agrarian sites in North Texas. During the Civil War the Nash brothers left to serve with Confederate troops while Elizabeth and the children kept the farm; all returned to expand their holdings. The 1869 I-house, a crib barn, cistern, and family cemetery still stand, and in 1888 the Nashes gave right-of-way to the Cotton Belt Railroad that spurred the region's growth.